PYUUPIRU 2001-2008
by Daishi Matsunaga
Japan 2010
95 minutes, Japanese with English and Italian subtitles

Pyuupiru was born as male but he gradually realized that his body didn't fit him. He tried to clear that feeling by wearing eccentric handmade costumes, but that was not enough. Beyond performance art and surgery, Pyuupiru embarks on a journey between sexes, driven both by his desire to know himself and his unrelenting creativity, molding his body like a sculptor.

Daishi Matsunaga, and old friend of his/hers has filmed Pyuupiru for eight years since 2001. In this documentary he combines this footage with interviews to friends and family creating an intimate portrait of a young artist capable of transforming the turmoils of a soul into art.

THE TABLE WITH THE DOGS (KATHAKALI)
by Cédric Martinelli and Julien Touati
India 2010
40 minutes, no dialogues

Julien Touati is the first student from the Western World to have been accepted in PSV Natyasangham, a school devoted to Kathakali, the highly stylized classical danced theatre of India. Day after day, from early morning to late night, Julian is absorbed in a hypnotic and sensual training of his body and soul, discovering a world where hyerarchy is immutable, religion omnipresent, and women absent.

Kathakali is a remarkable documentary that allows us to be the witness of one of the last places where this form of theatre is taught in its purest tradition. Instead of solely didactic description of what Kathakali is, the film is leading the viewers on a sensorial and atypical journey that can also be perceived as a hypnotic experience at times.

LE CIEL EN BATAILLE [Wild Sky]
by Rachid B.
France 2010
45 minutes, French with English and Italian subtitles

At his sick father's bedside, in a final, silent showdown, Rachid B. recalls his strongest memories. From his childhood in Morocco to recollections of his homosexuality and rejection of Christianity, right up to his recent conversion to Islam, he gives an honest account of his life, his wanderings, and the splits that have marked it.

Rachid's voice takes the viewer to a complex human experience, constantly battling between the urges of the body and the purity of the soul. His homosexuality, never denied but nonetheless impossible to be openly admitted, struggles to have a worldly existance while in the sky the gods stand still. With dream-like images and poetic narration, the documentary longs for a spiritual dimension of peace of mind and senses.

ROMEO & JULIUS
by Sabine Hviid
Denmark 2010
25 minutes, Danish with English and Italian subtitles

A students group is preparing an updated version of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet for their final annual production: two boys, themselves struggling with their own kind of love, perform the central characters. Reality soon starts to interfere with the play as rehearsals begin. The Shakespearean classic plot twist is about to come and shatter.

Director Sabine Hviid combines her documentation of the theatrical production with intimate interviews that reveals the internal life of both the characters and the players. Who do you love? That is the real 'to be or not to be' question. Romeo & Julius is a rare film that asks all the right questions and even provides a few daring answers. Sir William Shakespeare understood all too well that true love needs to be surprising, revolutionary and unstoppable.

FACE
by Adele Wilkes
Australia 2010
26 minutes, English with Italian subtitles

FACE focuses on Beautiful Agony, an ongoing collaborative art project that collects video self-portraits of faces during orgasm. A filmmaker who has been working behind the scenes on the project decides to experience the other side of the lens, turning the camera on herself for the first time.

This intimate and confronting documentary features a collage of unique perspectives from individuals who have contributed to the project, building a kaleidoscopic odyssey through the concurrently universal and uniquely individual experience of sexual pleasure and its artistic expression. FACE is a daring exploration of voyeurism, art and sex – and of how everyone of us, as diverse as can be, is part of the human species.

I SHOT MY LOVE
by Tomer Heymann
Israel 2010
55 minutes, Hebrew with English and Italian subtitles

Israeli director Tomer Heymann, while in Berlin presenting his latest work, meets Andreas, a German boy. When their occasional encounter shifts into an affair, Tomer's mother penetrates their partnership. Suddenly old woundings of Holocaust reappear and Tomer reluctantly finds himself in the middle of his love for his new boyfriend and for his intensely Israeli mother.

Tomer Heymann has been recording his life on tape for years, because he believes that powerful moments are there only if they're documented and saved for posterity. Now, for the first time, the object of a documentary is Tomer's own life.

REGRETTERS
by Marcus Lindeen
Sweden 2010
60 minutes, Swedish with English and Italian subtitles

Orlando and Mikael go under the knife in the hope of finding their true selves, only to realize that life on the other side doesn't turn out be to how they imagined. Now, well into their 60s, the two meet for the first time to talk about their lives as well as the one defining regret they both share: their sex change.

Marcus Lindeen successfully manages to treat a potentially explosive topic with admirable respect and empathy. By letting Orland and Mikael tell their dreams, love affairs, hopes and betrayales, Regretters shows us that even the search for ourselves can be a trial-and-error process. This amazing story hides an even more incredible secret: its meaningfulness for every one of us.

The second edition of the Gender DocuFilm Fest has been attended by a thousand people, including directors, producers, and Italian and foreign students. The open air auditorium was packed every evening.

"This little festival — said artistic director Giona Nazzaro — confirmed the pivotal role the documentary film has within our world. The documentary form is not a lazy television format, but the most live cinematic form, equal to the new wave in the cinema. Self-production, lightness of touch and a strong capacity of inquiring our present reality make the documentary the most exciting movie genre. This festival aims to be at the centre of a political, formal and thematical renovation. Documentary films are about our life, and the Gender DocuFilm Fest is one of the places where you can truly touch it."

JURY AWARD: KATHAKALI

The international jury — headed by filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, with Sonja Henrici, Robert Greene and Alberto Lastrucci — remarked how the discussion of gender is an evolving process, so it was important to find a film that expands the concept of gender and identity and approached the subject in a formally interesting and cinematic way. The jury awarded KATHAKALI by French directors Cédric Martinelli and Julien Touati.

"The winning film takes gender into a new territory. This is a film about bodies; about taking yourself to the limit of your experience, about persistance and physical effort which all serves as a radically illuminating metaphor for gender as a whole. It's a film about finding yourself despite cultural and physical limitation. The jury felt this film was the most expansive in its vision of what identity means to the individual."

SPECIAL MENTION AND AUDIENCE AWARD: REGRETTERS

The jury also wanted to make a special mention for REGRETTERS, by Swedish director Marcus Lindeen, a film that "tells two rare and challenging stories with minimal means, employed to maximum effect. The emotional connection to these two characters and the cinematic exploration of the landscape of their faces illuminates their radical specific stories and makes those stories universal."

REGRETTERS won the audience award as well: 96,3 % of the voting people embraced the story of Mikael and Orlando and was intimately touched by their tale of sorrow and hope. The appreciation for all the seven films in competition was very high, with most of the documentaries gaining around 80 % of favourable receptions from the audience.